Supreme Court may reconsider Citizens United decision

The state of Montana claims that they have the right to limit corporate spending in state elections.

It will be interesting to see if the court has the guts to reverse their boneheaded Citizens United decision. Or as two of the current Supreme Court justices who opposed Citizens United put it, what has happened because of that decision “make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’ [The new case] will give the Court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

2 Comments

franklyn wrote:

Citizens United says, “Let us create man in our image.”
Last time that happened, the whole damn world was wiped out except for Noah. Of course, being the 1%, he did own a yacht.
But it does show that the gods’ can change their minds.

Frankly, I do not see Montana having a chance of prevailing. For one thing, incorporation means that states are also bound by the Bill of Rights. So if Citizens United is based on the fact that money is speech that is protected by the First Amendment, states like Montana are equally forbidden from restricting campaign financing. So the only hope would be to directly overturn Citizens United, but stare decisis will make that very difficult, if not impossible.